#19 - Pandorum (2009)
This movie has one big thing going for it - there just aren't very many good sci-fi horror films out there. Sure, there are plenty of movies where aliens come to Earth to wreak havoc, but ones actually set in space or on another planet are much more rare - Alien, Event Horizon, and Sunshine are some of the only major ones that spring to mind for me, although there are certainly others (Alien rip-offs and fourth or fifth sequels that ran out of ideas, mostly). When the field is so underpopulated, it's easy for a film like this to stand out, and because of this what is really just an alright movie is made much more memorable.
Set in a future where Earth has become overpopulated to the point of collapse, Pandorum follows two crew members on the ship Elysium who wake up from hypersleep with no knowledge of where they are or what is going on. The ship seems abandoned, and they set about trying to get things running again. It definitely is interesting and fun to figure out what is happening as the movie progresses, and it does a good job of conveying the sense of disorientation that the two protagonists feel as well as filling us in on the details as they remember them. Once the action get going though, it becomes pretty video-gamey and the monsters are pretty generic - they look like LOTR orcs and screech a lot, which seems to be the standard go-to monster lately.
Anyway, if you like sci-fi horror, this one is worth checking out. It's got a couple of cool ideas, some scary moments, and a pretty good ending. Not an amazing film, but beggars can't be choosers.
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